Talk:Peatland

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Muntazer Alkayat, Elsasartor, Herryhen. Peer reviewers: Kuom4.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 04:16, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Contradiction hatnote target
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bog/Archive_1#Bogs.2C_Fens_.26_Mires

--Kevjonesin (talk) 19:29, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Carbon storage addition
hello, we are adding a Carbon storage section on this article. The information includes the affects of mires on the biogeochemical cycling of carbon, the impacts on climate change, and the impacts on the economy, society, and the industries related to mires.Herryhen (talk) 17:38, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 21:52, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Vasyugan Swamp.jpg

Students from Uppsala University working on this article
Hi!

We are a group of students at Uppsala University, Sweden, and we have been tasked with improving this article as part of our course 'Ecological Effects of Climate Change'.

Over the next few days, we will be applying our edits to this article, please communicate with us if you have any thoughts to share on what we are doing!

Is there a difference between floating mat and a quagmire or/and quaking bog ?
Is there a difference between floating mat and a quagmire or/and quaking bog ?

Carbon estimates are all over the place
There are inconsistent numbers used for global fossil fuel emissions or the units are not clear in the "Greenhouse gases and fires" section. Specifically the first sentence says CO2 emissions are 2 Gt-C/yr or 7% of fossil fuel emissions, but later estimates of .81-2.57 Gt is equal to 13% to 40% of fossil fuel emissions.

Separately earlier this sentence is put in, but could be slightly revised (or similar numbers should be put everytime a fraction is mentioned) Due to this, mires are collectively a major carbon store, containing between 500 and 700 billion tonnes of carbon, despite accounting for just 3% of Earth's land surfaces. Why not use Gt as a consistent unit everywhere or indicate equivalence for those not immediately familiar — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:5A66:9800:E968:7B82:74B6:B768 (talk) 02:38, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Think this needs some cleanup.
Looks like there's confusion and/or contradictions related to mires, bogs, fens, swamps, and marshes. The pages for swamps and marshes say they're not mires, the page for mires say they are. The bog and fen pages agree those are the two different kinds of mires... but the mire page doesn't spend any time differentiating between the two (which pages make the distinction based on pH), and instead has a section on tropical mires, which are mentioned in neither bog nor fen. The page for wetlands at least agrees that bogs and fens are both kinds of mires, but doesn't describe any of them. It also notes the problem of regional variation. Feels like some of these pages could use some clean up, expansion, clarification, and links to external sources... by someone who knows what these all are. I came here to find the differences and found this.

Climate Change Course - Edits to Reflect IPCC AR6
Hi all, I am part of a course at Brown University led by Prof. Baylor Fox-Kemper aiming to update various pages to reflect new findings published in the IPCC AR6 WG1, WG2, and WG3 Reports. *

I will keep you updated on my edits for this page.

Current goals include: add a reference to IPCC AR6; update information to be up to date with AR6; emphasize the role of climate change in destroying peatlands and/or their role in fighting climate change; and offer comments and suggestions for future edits.MarinersApartmentLandlord (talk) 23:12, 18 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Description of Edits being Made: In the summary, I add specificity to the statement “However, there is growing anthropogenic influence…”. This is consistent with the cited source. Under “Greenhouse gases and fires”, I add a sentence citing the IPCC AR6 Report that offers a general review of why peatlands and wetlands are important for fighting climate change and their role in mitigating carbon emissions. This then gives some background to the broader scale impacts of the specific peatland destruction events described in the subsequent paragraphs. I also add a clarifying edit in the middle of the paragraph consistent with the original sentence.
 * MarinersApartmentLandlord (talk) 23:57, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Structural Comment
A comment for a more experienced editor to consider:

Should the article be renamed to "Peatland", since this is a more commonly used term than Mire? Just for consideration. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarinersApartmentLandlord (talk • contribs) 00:16, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

It is unclear why there is a section titled “Greenhouse gases and fires” and another titled just “Fires”. It would be more intuitive to move the discussion on Greenhouse gases to under “Impacts on Global Climate”, and perhaps integrating the Fires section as a sub-section under “Greenhouse gases”.

As for content, the “Greenhouse gases and fires” section needs to be updated to reflect recent developments in scientific research and the state of global climate change. I will try to add a reference to the latest IPCC report.

Additionally, I recommend moving the El Nino Event sentences as well as The Mega Rice Project sentences (everything from “During the El Nino event…” to “...marshes and fens due to rice production.”) into a dedicated sub-section that describes Climate Impacts of Peatland Destruction. This would make this section more clear, distinguish individual events from general trends, and make it easier to keep these sections updated with new scientific information.

Lastly, most of the citations in this section are from before 2010, and should be updated to reflect new scientific developments. (e.g., is it still the case that “The draining of peatlands is probably the most important and long lasting threat to peatlands all over the world but especially in the tropics.”?). However, the IPCC does not dive into much detail on wetlands, so it may also be the case that there is a lack of new research.

MarinersApartmentLandlord (talk) 00:01, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

PDF concern
Hi and welcome to the page. I took a look at the link you posted to the IPCC AR6 pdf and I am concerned that a substantial number of pages say 'Do Not Cite, Quote, or Distribute'. Is this the version you intended to post? Is there possibly another form that is intended to be released for public consumption? It seems strange that this would be the disclaimer on a final report that is supposed to be shared widely. Looking forward to seeing your contributions and working with you. Best, Kazamzam (talk) 01:06, 19 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi @Kazamzam, thanks for flagging this for me.
 * Most of my citations will be for the WG1 report, which is now finalized and published. I do not see any "Do Not Cite" notices in its chapters: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/. I will check with my professor for information on citing the unfinalized WG2 & WG3 reports; in the meantime I will hold off on making any references to these.
 * Best, MarinersApartmentLandlord (talk) 10:37, 19 May 2022 (UTC)


 * , thank you for your response. However the PDF you posted for the WG1 report has 'Do Not Cite, Quote, or Distribute' on almost every page after page 43 in the PDF, going on for over 3000 pages. I strongly encourage you to discuss this with your professor as, based on this alone, it does not seem approved to be posted on Wikipedia. Best, Kazamzam (talk) 13:55, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi all, speaking here as an IPCC author:
 * The "do not cite" is a bit frustrating at this stage (though critical earlier on in the process), because those reports have been approved at the approval sessions, which means that no further substantive changes can be made.  Even relatively minor changes (e.g., removing a citation from one location) require official error-reporting procedure to be triggered.  The only thing that's not final at this stage is the page numbering, really, which will only come in the formatted for printing versions (as are now available for AR6, WGI). Minor typographic changes, fixing punctuation, cleaning common (not technical) wording, etc., may also occur, so direct quotations may not yet be a good idea. However, the section numbering is final at this stage. Baylorfk (talk) 14:06, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Move proposal: "Peatland" (expert review)
Hi, I'm working with peatland experts Drs Terhi Riutta and Caroline Signori-Muller to review this article as part of the WiR for Climate. There's a confusion in this article between mires and peatlands. According to the experts I have been consulting + additional research:

a mire = A peatland where peat is actively being formed, while drained and converted peatlands might still have a peat layer, but are not considered mires, as the formation of new peat has ceased.

a peatland = Peatlands are wetlands whose soils consist almost entirely of organic matter derived from the remains of dead and decaying plant material. From: Creating and Restoring Wetlands, 2016

See also Joosten, H., D. Clark., 2002 (see Table 7.1 here in Science Direct).

The majority of this article is about peatlands, not mires specifically.

I propose moving / renaming this article " Peatland " to 1) align with the existing content on peatlands in the article, 2) match the broader scope of the article (peatlands generally), and 3) align with the term more frequently used in science and on a policy level when discussing these environments. TatjanaClimate (talk) 10:22, 19 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello, thank you for your proposal. Can you please provide more details about this? My main question is about the overlap between mires vs. peatlands in a 'all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares'. If all mires are peatlands and a mire is a specific type of peatland, then I think the renaming would be appropriate. If not, I think the article could be restructured so that there is more information about non-peatland mires, with a separate article about peatlands. There would be overlap but I think having more information (that is complimentary) is better than reducing the scope. Please let me know what you think and thank you and Drs. Riutta and Signori-Muller for your work! Best, Kazamzam (talk) 13:48, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi @Kazamzam, thank you for your insights! As you say, I understand that all mires are peatlands and a mire is a specific type of peatland - but not all peatlands are mires !
 * Because much of the article already focuses on peatlands generally, I don't forsee a major refocussing of the content if we were to move/rename the article (and I will also double check this with the experts I am consulting), aside from changing some mentions of "mires" into "peatlands" and adding mire to the list of peatland types. I think this approach would make more sense than creating a new "Peatland" article and pulling almost all the content from the existing Mire article to put there. TatjanaClimate (talk) 14:23, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the input re: below requested move. Since the move was made I have
 * updated the definition of peatland, change mention of "mire" to "peatland" where appropriate, added a Types section to clarify terms.
 * In the coming days I am planning to
 * continue to work on the lead to add mention of GHGs carbon and methane, examine mire vs peatlands in the section Global distribution, potentially move some content from the lead to a new section called Formation, clear up some confusion between mire types (I do not think that swamp and marsh can be consistently categorised as mires, more that they can on occassion be mires/peatlands - will check and confirm) and continue with general edits as part of the expert review. TatjanaClimate (talk) 13:17, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 29 September 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) — Material  Works  10:21, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Mire → Peatland – See rationale above. This discussions was initiated on 19 September. TatjanaClimate (talk) 11:06, 29 September 2023 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support, appears to be the common name. Mdewman6 (talk) 17:23, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Support yes - not an expert but I have only come across mires in historical books Chidgk1 (talk) 06:25, 1 October 2023 (UTC)